Columbine Description

From the book jacket:

Two boys left an indelible stamp was left on the American psyche April 20, 1999, when they attempted to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the gunfire that followed defined a new era of school violence, branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia, we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot. We think of Bill Clinton offering prayers, and that boy in the window -- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism, nearly ten years in the making, is a story none of us knew. For the first time, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology and lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal.

The portrait of Eric and Dylan in their final year is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who would stockpile a basement of weapons, record their hatred, and manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, which Cullen shockingly describes with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups. A riveting and utterly human portrait of two killers that is unforgettable and a cautionary tale for our times.

From Dave:

I spent ten years on this story, and like everyone who got close to Columbine, I was struck by how consuming and complex it was. There were so many fascinating individuals, with so many rich stories woven together tightly.

I was most compelled by two questions: what drove these killers, and what did they do to this town? That's what I set out to tell.

Letter from the publisher:

Dear Reader,

I was drawn to Dave Cullen’s work by a New York Times column by David Brooks, who praised Cullen’s freelance writing on the massacre at Columbine. Cullen had been on the scene at Columbine from day one and had distinguished himself as the most authoritative writer on the subject. I asked him to write a short book on the subject.

That was about ten years ago. Since then, this gifted and relentless writer has lived with this story every day, going to extraordinary lengths to understand this tragedy from every relevant perspective: through the eyes of the families, school officials, investigators, community leaders, and most amazingly, the killers themselves, who left behind such extensive personal testimony and evidence about their plans that the author has been able to do something truly remarkable – document the descent of two teenage boys from a typical adolescent life into madness and murder.

What is shocking about Columbine is just how ordinary these two boys seemed. They loved their parents, did their homework, worked at the local pizzeria, and – contrary to widely reported accounts – were well-liked by their peers. With precision and perspective that will haunt and amaze you, Dave Cullen has crafted an indelible portrait of American youth that is at once familiar and horrifying. Better than any author I have ever read, he describes the psychological journey through which young men become killers.

This is not an easy story to confront, but I have no doubt that Columbine will be regarded as a classic of literary nonfiction and the definitive work on the community that suffered one of the most violent tragedies of our time.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Karp

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

TWELVE .

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